Universal Credits - Self Employed

BigAunty

charlotte4940 wrote: »

How would this be proved though. what about work that isnt paid for e.g. going to customers homes and giving quotes, delivering leaflets, going to suppliers etc

Claimants that are occasionally subject to compliance investigations to check they meeting the conditions - for example, that those with children are working at least 24 hours between them with at least one parent working full time (you are working full time anyhow).

If your husband actually runs a business himself in the future which includes the business activities you list, he can read the HMRC wtc guidance for the self employed that lists acceptable business related activities. At the moment, it just sounds like he gives a mate a hand who runs his own business and just pops along and does roof related work for him at a low daily rate...Is this the case?

shedboy94

BigAunty wrote: »

I don't know how the construction scheme works, perhaps its outside the employment/self employment guidelines, I don't know.

However, it did occur to me that the OPs husband might be stuffing up his state pension contributions and so I hope he has been earning 3k per annum in the long term, or at least paying the stamp. That's insufficient to be a contribution to credit towards the pension. I think it requires £107 per week earnings though perhaps the OPs hubby was receiving child benefit and this might pay for some years worth of contributions?. The OP should get her hubby to get a pension forecast and see whether he needs to pay for any missing years. I think it costs around £650 per year for missing NI contributions and you can go back 6 years. The govt has increased the years of NI contributions from 30 to 35 to qualify for the full state pension and people who underpay will just get a proportional share.

£3 an hour for a roofer...tsk...

I find it incredibly hard to believe a roofer working 20hpw would earn £3000.
Either he is

A. working only a couple of hours per week
B. vastly underdeclaring his actual income in order to maximise tax credits
C. not working at all, but saying he is to maximise tax credits

I very much doubt if I were to approach him to do a roofing job that would take 20 hours, that I would be charged £58.....

BigAunty

shedboy94 wrote: »

I find it incredibly hard to believe a roofer working 20hpw would earn £3000.
Either he is

A. working only a couple of hours per week
B. vastly underdeclaring his actual income in order to maximise tax credits
C. not working at all, but saying he is to maximise tax credits

I very much doubt if I were to approach him to do a roofing job that would take 20 hours, that I would be charged £58.....

The average rate for roofer vacancies posted on my local job centre is £14 an hour. The OP could be earning £280 per week or £14850 per annum round my way meaning their joint household income could exceed £31k per annum, instead of under 20k like they are now.

charlotte4940

Please could I just say we are NOT receiving working tax credits. we are getting child tax credit (which you can get if you are not in work) and help with childcare costs.

He does not run a business he works for the business on a self employed basis.

another question - when he receives a cash payment if he does his own job for a customer does he have to produce an invoice? at the moment he is putting the amount in a cash book. what is the correct procedure?

John_Pierpoint

If you are self employed you are making a profit, not earning a wage, the tax return asks you how many businesses you have. In in other words you really have to be standing some sort of business risk as well as being master of your own destiny.
Otherwise you are earning a wage, in a master and servant relationship.
In the last 40 years servants have been given a load more "rights", that is why small businesses are reluctant to hire them, and would rather pay lots of money to an agency.

BigAunty

charlotte4940 wrote: »

...

He does not run a business he works for the business on a self employed basis.

another question - when he receives a cash payment if he does his own job for a customer does he have to produce an invoice? at the moment he is putting the amount in a cash book. what is the correct procedure?

Right, just to clarify, does he mainly work for someone else who has an established roofing business, and this other person sources the customers themselves and pays him an hourly rate? But then he also occasionally does a job directly with a customer who needs a roofing job done that he finds himself and doesn't come from this other roofer's business?

Is he a sole trader or limited company, for example?

princessdon

charlotte4940 wrote: »

Please could I just say we are NOT receiving working tax credits. we are getting child tax credit (which you can get if you are not in work) and help with childcare costs.

He does not run a business he works for the business on a self employed basis.

another question - when he receives a cash payment if he does his own job for a customer does he have to produce an invoice? at the moment he is putting the amount in a cash book. what is the correct procedure?

In order to get Childcare costs then you must BOTH be working more than 16 hours a week. As he clearly isn't for a lot of weeks then those weeks you are not entitled to childcare.

He either needs to up his income/hours or you need to inform HMRC that there are weeks he isn't working 16 hours and they may expect an overpayment paid back to them.

charlotte4940

BigAunty wrote: »

Right, just to clarify, does he mainly work for someone else who has an established roofing business, and this other person sources the customers themselves and pays him an hourly rate? But then he also occasionally does a job directly with a customer who needs a roofing job done that he finds himself and doesn't come from this other roofer's business?

Is he a sole trader or limited company, for example?

He does mainly work for someone else who has an established roofing business. the other person sources the customers but does not pay him an hourly rate it is a day rate of £70 or £35 for half a day.

he does work for customers not relating to the business but this is only on occasion which is rare.

We have asked the owner of the roofing business to employ him as an employee but has said no as self employment is easier for him.

would an option be to ask for a contract of self employment going along the lines of he has a contract for a 20 hours a week to work on a self employed basis for the business then he has to be paid for 20 hours per week at minimum wage? we can then invoice the business per week for 20 hours and bank a cheque into his account to correspond with the invoice?

shedboy94

charlotte4940 wrote: »

He does mainly work for someone else who has an established roofing business. the other person sources the customers but does not pay him an hourly rate it is a day rate of £70 or £35 for half a day.

Ok, so he's paid £70 a day.....so assuming he works 2 days to work approx 16hrs he would earn £140pw. Annually that is £7280.
If you say he earns £3000, that would mean he works on average just 43 days per year = approx 6hpw
He is certainly not working a min 16hpw so why are you claiming childcare costs when he clearly either isn't working the required hours, or is not declaring his full income?

You have also stated in a previous post that he has no expenses so what he earns is pure profit.

You have also stated in this post that the other person sources the work, so why in a previous post did you say this?

charlotte4940 wrote: »

How would this be proved though. what about work that isnt paid for e.g. going to customers homes and giving quotes, delivering leaflets, going to suppliers etc

[Deleted User]

Wow this thread grew fast!!! and I can't even remember what the original topic was!!!! :-)